Millions swap music illegally, Britain's record industry says

Below:

Next story in Games

LONDON — More than 7 million people in Britain now download music from illegal Web sites, causing a drop in music sales in stores, leaders of Britain's record industry said Thursday as they launched a campaign to curb music piracy.

The British Phonographic Institute, or BPI, said warnings would be posted on the Internet threatening court action against the pirates.

Research commissioned by the institute has shown that some 8 million people now download music from the Internet and 7.4 million — or 92 percent — admit doing so illegally.

As a result, consumers are expected to spend 32 percent less on albums and 59 percent less on singles than they did last year, the institute warned.

"There is no clearer evidence of the damage that illegal downloading is doing to British music and the British music industry," said BPI chairman Peter Jamieson.

"Illegal file-sharing is causing real financial damage to artists, to songwriters, to record companies, publishers, retailers and everyone involved in the business."

The institute said that in 2002 there were 184 million cases of piracy, while legitimate CD album sales totaled 222 million.